Interview: Comeback Kid

Written by David Marote

Winnipeg, Manitoba, the city seems to have something different in their water seeing all the great bands hailing from this infamous Canadian city. When Winnipeg hardcore sensation Comeback Kid played at the amazing Jera On Air festival near the end of June, RMP Magazine couldn't refuse the the opportunity to talk to guitar player Jeremy about their new upcoming album and what's in store for Comeback Kid in the nearby future.

Welcome to Jera, your first time here. Looking forward?

I think it's our first time here. I look at all the names and i'm surprised we haven't been here before.

You kicked of the Euro tour last week with Graspop in Belgium and Hellfest in France, nice weather for the festivals!

It's definitely, it's a little on the warm side but it's good for the festivals. It's either raining or hot. Groezrock sometimes it's like a little colder.

Comeback Kid is releasing a new album soon, Outsider is scheduled for early september on Nuclear Blast records. A first time co-operation with this German label after a long relation with Victory records?

Well, we had our record contract finished with Victory. We weren't opposed to working with Victory but we also wanted to see what else interest was out there. The more we talked to Nuclear Blast and just the people, let's do this. The overall conscensus was that this was going to be a good one for the band. Trying something a little bit different. We're coming to Europe so much that it seems important to have a record label that is based in Europe. That understands how a band like Comeback Kid fits in the whole European circle of touring and festivals. So we are just excited to do it with them.

You also did an online Q&A few days ago, on the Nuclear Blast Facebook. How was the response from the fans?

Yeah, that was interesting. It think it was our first time doing it, for us trying different things like that it's a little bit of getting used to. You see the questions pop up and you quickly try to answer them but new questions keep popping up, somebody else sees something they want to answer.

It can be kind of a shit show but i think it's fun.

So Outsider, the album cover looks amazing with the smoking head but would should the listener expect from your latest offspring?

I think the easiest way to explain it is, especially for people that are long time Comeback Kid fans, we never try to put out the same record twice. We always try to challenge ourselves but also stay inside our perimeters. We don't want to do a soft rock album or a full on grindcore. We have certain perimeters we work withing. We want to be creative with that. So there's going to be some stuff that could sound like it came from the last record, maybe a few records ago. It's all over the place. There's going to be thirteen songs on it.

You already released the song Absolute featuring Devin Townsend. How did this come by, working with a Canadian God?

Andrew, our singer plays in another band called Sights and Sounds and Devin produced an album for them a long time ago. And Stu our other guitar player he plays Misery Signals, and Devin produced a Misery Signals record. So we have those contacts with him. Just when it was time to do vocals for that song it all started growing, this one part. We were kind of joking about the idea, this is kind of Devin Townsend stuff, Strapping Young Lad. Maybe we should ask him. So at first he was like, send me the song, i'm interested to hear it. Then he heard and liked it. For someone on the outside it might be the same but for someone into the hardcore and metal it's like two different camps. There's progressive metal stuff that he does and there's simpler stuff that Comeback Kid does. It came together in a way that we were all happy with it.

I've noticed that you like reading up on tour, on one of your pictures i saw Hepatitis Bathtub, the book by NOFX. Does Comeback Kid have some stories that you could compile in your own book?

The Comeback Kid book, maybe not as crazy as the NOFX book.

When you stop and think about it, some of the travelling experiences that you had are just like, what happened. When we first went to Indonesia, that was kind of weird, we almost didn't make it because we didn't have enough pages in our passport. Then they covered up one of our guitarplayers stamps in his passport which is supposed to be illegal, but they put a visa in there so he could come play. Apparantly there was some money being paid by the promotor to the customs. But we can't understand the language. We got in.

Comeback Kid played a support slot on the Cro Mags shows in Canada a while ago. This was Cro Mags with John Joseph, but there also another Cro Mags with harley fronting it.

I'm not going to comment on that. I'm not going there. They have their feud. I never actually met Harley before, I met John so let's just leave it there.

Next to the new album, what's up in the nearby future for Comeback Kid you'd like to share?

We're going to be taking the rest of the summer off. After that we're going to lay low. I have a one and a half year old son that i want to spend the rest of the summer with. We're going to be moving, right now we live in the country and sort of moving back into Winnipeg, into the city. Just get to know the neighbourhood a little better in the next months, then the record comes out and just tour, tour, tour. I try to spend as much time as i can with my son when i'm home.